Grrl Power #105 – Superfluous semantics

Boy that center panel is a mess. The problem I’ve created for myself is that I have a scene with 7 people in it (8 as of next page really) and they’re on opposite sides of the room from each other and most of the conversations cross the room. So now in order to draw a conversation, I have to either have a dozen back and forth headshots of each person speaking their side of the conversation, or I have to draw multiple side-on long shots of the room with everyone in it and fill the space between with word balloons.

I’m almost tempted to try and sell my one big panel with the clockwise progression of the conversation as actually being a clever solution to the problem. On top of all that, this is the heavily edited version of what I had originally written, but I realized that if I hadn’t edited it, it would have been at least another page before I got back to our overcoated interloper, and that would probably be worse storytelling than making you guys slog through one messy panel. All the jokes I had to edit out get to ferment in the margins for a bit, I’ll find somewhere to stick them back in.

It’s not a bad page – Sydney acts nutty, we see a little back and forth between her and Dabbler / Dabbler and Max. It’s just a lot crammed into the available space. Sequential storytelling is an artform unto itself, and I’m still learning. Well the good news is I think this scene is going to wrap up soon. It’s gone on longer than the bank I think.

Oh and I guess Arianna fixed the drape. Also, assume Sydney is pacing around while she’s trying to remember stuff. Otherwise the blocking makes no sense. Gah. Still learning.

As for the blocking for me through the whole page….. I just took it as Syd and Dab walking around the room as they are taking. After all in panel 4 Dab is up close to Max. Pepole do tend to mindless walk or shift position as they are talking and on their feet.

I think perhaps he’s been in there the whole time, but no one had noticed him due to the cloaking feild or power he has…or he’s an uber spy sent by an rival organization/goverent burocuracy (I know I misspelled it, I’m sorry)

I like to call the power “Cat-sense” based on the many cultural belief that cats possess some form of psychic power (in many East Asian cultures they believe they have precognitive powers, one breed supposedly being able to even predict the weather “Korat”).

You ever notice spider-man doesn’t really have any actual spider powers? His webs come from a web-shooter (except in the Raimi Trilogy of course), spiders don’t have few seconds danger precog, they sense vibrations through delicate hairs to detect incoming things. Spider’s use hooks on their limbs to climb, spider-man’s wall climbing has officially been described as manipulating the static attraction of his body to bond the electron chains to surfaces forming a link (its a real world version of tactilekinesis allowing climbing with out hooks or grips). the strength of a spider comes from a fluid pressure system inside their limbs (natural hydrolics), Spider-man has the proportionate strength but its due to super-human enhancement of his muscle tissues and bone strength which a spider doesn’t have anyway.

Well still better than Spider-woman (Jessica Drew) who can fly and shoot energybolts.

I have always wondered why he does that little hair curl…does he carry around a bottle of gel with him? When he changes into his suit, does he take the extra millisecond to check himself out in the mirror to make sure his hair is just right?

Elfguy sort of answers this with his quote, but they did also tackle the idea near the end of Smallville. Basically, he and Lois discussed the problem and decided that, if he wanted to show his face as Superman, become a symbol of hope people could look up too (and not “hide” behind a mask like a criminal) he had to make “Clark Kent” into his disguise; such a homely, geeky, unaggressive little dork of a man, that if anyone ever commented:
“Hey, don’t you think Clark kinda looks a bit like Superman?”
The immediate response would be:
“CLARK?!?!? Are you kidding? Clark couldn’t save 25% off at Winners! Superman is awesome! Clark is unbuttered toast!”

Which singularly helped drive a massive stake into the heart of the show, it was around this time they started to undo so much character development and world building that made the show unique just to adhere to the original premise from season 1 that he was supposed to grow into the original classic super-man,
but sticking with this point to avoid a long rant, by this point he already was working at the Daily Planet and already had a reputation amongst police, hospital staff, and firefighters. When they did this on the show I asked my coworkers that if I suddenly came to work wearing glasses, acting wimpy, and wearing funny clothes, and there was a super-hero appearing that looked like me before I did all that would they be fooled. Pretty much a universal NO.
It is one thing for him to go to Metropolis wearing glasses, the suit, and acting wimpy at the start like ALL the other adaptations do, but to suddenly change after working in this city for a few years, would be a big flag of suspicion.

But Clark’s face isn’t generally well known…presumably, Chloe will clean out all the images of his face “Pre Nerd” on the Internet. As for the glasses, he can claim that his contact lenses have started irritating his eyes, and the suit can be explained in that as a big time reporter, he has to dress for success, as nobody would want to be interviewed by someone who dresses like a teenager.

doesn’t matter, he was already working there for a few years; his co-workers will recognize his face. Plus we know he is known by face and name by several members of the hospital staff, police department, and fire fighters that he has spoken to on several occassions. They would put it together that he is Super-man the second super-man shows his face and is interviewed. Heck several of them had already begun to suspect he was “the blur” him suddenly changing his attitude, dress, hairstyle, and wearing glasses, while Super-man who looks exactly how he looked before, even wearing simular colorscheme…suspicious to the nth degree. Those cops, paramedics, and firefighters, not to mention his boss at work would all have to figure it out right away; otherwise I wouldn’t trust any of them to notice a neon clown riding a pink elephant down mainstreet.

It was just too late, and that whole Lex Luthor amnesia thing was just a slap in the face. This itiration of the franchise had potential, and for the most part was living up to creating its own mythos; they threw that all away in the final few episodes with plot changes that simply wouldn’t work.

They did come up with an explanation at one point, albeit a terrible one back when the comics were still black and white. At that point he wasn’t just a reporter, but also a news anchor and his face was known throughout Metropolis. Apparently, when he’s wearing his Kryptonian glasses, he subconciously hypnotizes everyone to see him as weak and frail, even older than he actually is. He doesn’t realize this until he, deliberately, hypnotizes the entire city into not being hypnotized by anyone else and Lara and Lois happen upon him changing costume. They, of course, tell him that no one would ever believe him to be Clark because Clark is much smaller than him. Gotta love how those old comics completely disregarded making any but the most weird kind of sense ^_^

I’ve always seen it as Superman has a level of telepathy and he bends his co-workers minds away from the facts, a sort of second face recognized by others. He IS the most powerful super in existance (Unless you count the comic where he got killed…Yeah) it could be that he’saffecting himself as well so he dosn’et think that he’s doing more than putting on glasses and a diff outfit. As for smallville, i agree that they totally FUBAR’ed it.

Before the John Byrne “reboot”, the last word on this was that Clark’s glasses (whose unbreakable lenses were cut via his heat-vision from the “windshield” of the rocket that first brought him to Earth) were focusing & amplifying his thoughts as a low-level form of hypnotic suggestion. He even asked a Daily Planet staff artist to do a quick sketch to test this theory, & got a portrait that was no better than merely “somewhat similar” to Kal-El’s features.

As appropriate as that would be, we’ve done it twice so far, so if we pushed it with a 3rd time, the question inevitably gets raised: “just how freakin’ long does it take Harem to pee? Is she emptying 5 bladders in there?”

No, just one very full bowel. During times of digestive distress, I have been known to sit for over 10 minutes, trying to get it all out. That may be happening for this body. Or, she’s finished and just standing next to the door to the ladies’ room, bent over laughing.

Emptying 5 bladders at once.. gave me a giggle until I thought about. Well, wouldn’t be convient if the other 4 of her (or however many aer roaming at the time) just teleport the … urmm. pee (or other stuff) to the one that’s sitting on the toilet. Then only one of her needs to go to the bathroom for hours between time instead of 4 of her lined up outside the bathroom stall asking herself when she’ll be done.
Heck she could designate 1 of her to only have that job and the rest of her could be out fighting crime while the last stays in the office to constantly eat, drink, sleep and go to the bathroom.

of course when she doing other things then she would want all of her there. :P

I’m actually leaning towards the ninja turning out to be, if not a bad guy, a member of a group opposed to Archon. Episode #105 and no meta plot or major villains even implied yet? Seems about time for a mystery opponent to appear (possibly literally).

Silly General, are you worried about Maxima’s comment Offending Dabbler?

Quite the opposite; Dab looks thrilled! I imagine if Maxima’s been refusing to “play along” with the banter much up until now, Dab would take that as strong evidence Maxima genuinely didn’t like her. Teasing back and forth banter and even mild insults implies a comfortable informal friendship (especially to a personality like Dabbler’s). Dabbler is the opposite of offended; she feels included & accepted! So happy!

Arianna: “She really DOES look happy and included… General, how come YOU never insinuate my vagina is as well traveled as an interstate highway? Don’t you like me?”
General: “………………. Right at the moment, not much, no.”

I see the two possiblities likely for our masked armored ‘man’ one he is a body guard for General Faulk or he is an enemy agent or from the NSA spying on ARCSWAT. There could easily be others. We’ll have to wait to find out.

Till you mentioned it, I didn’t even think there could have been a problem with the center panel. You didn’t pull that off, you presented it in a manner that all the conversations in the room at the same time were understandable, while I still could hear the murmuring in the background of others while I was reading one set. That was a nicely done professional presentation, not something you got away with or pulled off as if it was a collision avoided.
Thanks, pro all the way, I really look forward to this strip, Your #1.
Scott

If I can follow the dialogue without going back and wondering what’s going on, it’s a success. You did a great job, cause it took me a few comments to wonder what the heck everyone was yammering about, since i never saw the “problem”.

Excellent story, fantastic art, you are nailing this from every angle it could be nailed. Take a bow.

Besides that raises the question if the aura can alter one’s internal sexual drives and inhibitions like a drug or if it only enhances an attraction that would already be there even if the target wouldn’t know.

But the whole date rape thing, that applies to pretty much all love and lust related potions, spells, and psionics. If used in that fashion which is pretty much how all were designed, if the target wouldn’t have made this choice in the first place and only needed a push.

The conversation between Joel and Sydney back in the comic shop implied that real supers were a recent phenomenon. I.E. they were saying that the comic market hadn’t changed all that much now that there were “real” supers. I would also guess that would mean that the advent of real supers hasn’t been long enough ago to have a big impact on the comics market. (How long in advance of release are print comics written and drawn?)

What’s still unclear is whether the recent discovery is just the APPEARANCE of Supers, or the public’s AWARENESS of Supers. The latter implies that they’ve been around much longer (perhaps even centuries!), but have only just lately chosen to “go public”. Both possibilities have story potential. Supers may still be rare (when compared to the overall population), but compared to historical records, this is an explosive increase in their numbers. Is there some unknown reason why this is has happened now, & not before?

If we go by some X-men comics from the 70’s and 80’s (when the genetic reason for their powers was introduced, where as prior we had stories like Prof. X’s parents worked on nuclear energy and this affected him through them).

*cough*
anywho going by the mostly early X-men comics, we had mutants on Earth for millenia, and most of them kept themselves very secret (sightings spawned stories of gods and monsters….which is silly when Marvel does have gods and monsters…anywho moving on again (thank you Marvel with your contradicting, forgetting X-men was supposed to be part of the same universe as Inhumans, Thor, and all that)

anywho again, the basic premise was the mutants kept themselves secret for the most part, only seen briefly, and mixed in among the divine and demonic crowds, we had the angelic mutants, demon like, the Clan Akkaba, ect… but as the world’s population grew, so did the number of mutants. With so many around, and with them also being born to normal parents, it was only a matter of time thanks to the laws of probability before one or more let the cat out of the bag (like a super-villain or super-hero who is a mutant showing up, or a kid showing off ect…).

Marvel is a bad example given how it feels like their should be an X-universe seperate from everything else due to the contradictions of view points and history that exist thanks to all this other stuff being around.

I’m confused about the orbs – the green and purplish ones had the unknown uses but she lit up the yellow one and got the truesight – was that just an error or something else was what gave her the truesight?

Apparently the yellow orb with the small inner orb is doing multiple things. Truesight when just held, and ilisuions when the inner orb has been released. Wether they can be done at the same time, we will have to wait and see.

The Illusion orb also lets her relocate her point of view, so that as she was turned toward the wall of the room, her image (with viewpoint) was able to watch people putting up various hand signs, (the Rocker, the Spocker, and such).

As this orb is giving her sensory information, it could simply always have been giving her truesight, but up until she met Dabbler, she hadn’t encountered somebody using a sense-confusing power while using that orb.

Thorough testing of that orb will probably include visits to the US Marine sniper training school, to check for possible enhancements to spotting small items at range, or spotting people in camouflaged/hidden locations.

“Thorough testing of that orb will probably include visits to the US Marine sniper training school, to check for possible enhancements to spotting small items at range, or spotting people in camouflaged/hidden locations.”

I don’t think that would work. As we saw a few pages ago the illusion of Syd moved exactally the same way as Syd. So if Syd is looking to the left so is the copy. Both of them would face North at the same time and so forth as she turns. In fact on page 89 panel 12 (last one) we see Syd putting her arm through Arianna’s head they they’re are (almost) exactally the same. The focal of the view would never cross unless one is looking at the back of the other.

One does wonder if after activating the illiusion she could move the inner orb around, thus making the illiusion move without walking. Other wise it would be based on the first cast distance of the spell/power.

That would be fun to see, Syd flying along beside Max and bugging her while she is sitting in the office telling someone what Max is doing. :D

Personally, I’d add Heatwave to that contest, even though comparing THERMAL to CHEMICAL heat is like comparing apples to oranges…
…in fact, why be “elitist”??? Let’s open the contest to one-&-all – Males/Females, Supers/Normals, everyone line up & give it your best shot! How else can we discover whether or not there’s a “dark horse” amongst the staff, who finally gets declared Champion? Maybe Leon? Maybe the receptionist? Maybe the janitor? Only the Author knows for sure at this point!

For example, is Achilles’ invulnerability only “skin-deep” (I.E.: merely a “field effect”), or does it extend down through his esophagus, & the rest of his internal organs? Dabbler’s DNA (if any) is 100% non-human – does she even process food with the same chemical reactions as humans?
(…& if so, why would we assume that her taste-buds (if she *HAS* any!) transmit the same kind of data to her as ours do for us?)

Mammals detect heat, as in “I am being burned!”, by means of a temperature-sensitive pore on our nerve cells. When you are getting cooked, the pore opens, potassium ions pour out and the nerve cell sends a signal to the brain that says, “We are on fire, and that is not a good thing.” Capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers, triggers this pore chemically, which is why eating hot peppers makes your mouth feel like its on fire and not some other form of pain, like chewing broken glass.

Heatwave is likely immune to any amount of heat she can generate, but does that make her more resistant to the effects of capsaicin? Her fireproof nerve cells are not so likely to pour out potassium as her cells are not actually getting damaged. Getting those pores triggered chemically is probably going to be a new experience for her. “Ahhg! Just one bite of that stuff and my mouth is in pain! Why would anybody want to eat this stuff? I want water! Why?”

Dabbler is not human (not even close). Her mechanism to detect burning is likely very different from that of mammals. In fact, birds and reptiles use mechanisms that are just different enough that capsaicin does not affect them in the way it does us mammals. Capsaicin appears to be specifically targeted at mammals.

Who else could handle Sydney’s lunch? Clearly Sydney, but who else? Probably Max when she is in invulnerability mode. Harem may be able to have one of her bodies in the same room, but otherwise, probably not. If anybody else is, it would not be tied to her/his powers.

Actually, I think the blocking (and the varying position of Sydney implied by the panels) work quite well. Sydney is by now well defined as… highly mobile, and the changing position didn’t even register until I re-read the 4th time (and your accompanying self-criticism). The dialouge in the center panel also seemed to flow quite well, without any hitch from a reader’s perspective. Smooth to the mind’s eye, I think your disquiet with the result are only due to your comparing it to what might have been had there been enough room for your original script. Reader commendation!

The orbs always have a glow, I think their glow increases when when they are held and used. If this were animated or live action it would be easy to see them as their glow changed intensity as they are used.

Site Links

Google Banner

Footer Block

I'll just leave these here for your convenience - and obviously to drive a little traffic my way. Bottom line is If you like the comic, vote, share and tell others! Maybe someone else who will enjoy the comic will find their way here.